CIS: The safest way to a good match

When accepting clients for insurance or processing claims, making the right decisions is key. As an insurance company or authorised agent, how can you quickly verify the information provided within the scope of your own policy, while also carrying out the required checks and making sure that the potential customer is happy with the speed with which you are carrying out these checks? CIS offers its members the safest way to a good match.

What makes CIS unique?

CIS is an organisation by and for insurance companies and their authorised agents.

The CIS database is exclusive and unique: no commercial provider has access to the information contained in it.

In terms of risk assessments for acceptances and claims, our members state that the information they receive from CIS is the most valuable. Other sources of information are seen as interesting but only secondary to ours. CIS data is usually the first indicator in investigations into insurance abuse.

CIS is not out to make a profit: we plough all our funds back into the services we develop and provide for our members.

An additional benefit is that CIS offers its members services at the lowest possible cost.

CIS supports its members with the greatest care in all these areas, allowing scope for the individual organisation's own criteria. CIS is a non-profit organisation that works constantly to refine its existing services and develop new services for its members.

Thirty years ago, a group of leading non-life insurance companies put their heads together under the motto: ‘Competition is good, but it makes more sense to work closely together on some aspects’. This was the birth of CIS. While the emphasis was originally on fraud prevention, the scope of CIS for its members increasingly shifted towards risk assessment for acceptances and claims in operational processes.

Our powerful cornerstone is the CIS database (and the associated software application FISH), which already contains 17 million records entered by our members. The CIS database is queried automatically 1.2 million times per month. On top of that, 7,300 users query the CIS database manually an average of 170,000 times per month.

Thousands of decisions are taken every day with the aid of CIS information. In insurance fraud investigations, CIS data forms the basis for launching an investigation in 9 out of 10 cases. Professionals who are satisfied with nothing less than optimum risk management take the safest way to a good match with CIS.

The CIS database, which contains 17 million records, is structured as follows:

Claim reports (CM)
Neutral claim report on any insurance product. This also includes aspects such as claims on life insurance policies as a result of death. The record is a factual rendition of a claim with no information on the fault or liability of the party concerned.
The insurance company or authorised agent can use this information to assess the claim risk.

Confidential Notices (VM)
Registration of cancellations by the insurance company or authorised agent following a breach of the insurance contract by the policyholder.

External Reference Index (EVR)
Registration of reference data of natural or legal persons included in the External Reference Index in accordance with the requirements of the Protocol in respect of the Incident Warning System for Financial Institutions on account of conduct that formed, forms or could form a threat to the interests of financial institutions or the continuity and/or integrity of the financial sector, such as insurance fraud.

Driving disqualifications (OBM)Registration of disqualifications from driving motor vehicles by the public prosecutor in the register of driving licences pursuant to Article 156(d) of the Decree on Driving Licences (Reglement Rijbewijzen).

Internal notes by members (IVR)
As a service for CIS members, we offer members the option of posting internal notes via the CIS platform.
These records do not form part of the CIS database and can only be consulted by the member themselves.

CIS members are in need of a referencing tool which enables them to find out in a simple and privacy-friendly way which insurance company(ies) or authorised agent(s) a specific natural or legal person or object (such as a company, a vehicle, a vessel, a building or an insured address) is or was insured with.

This kind of tool may, for example, be needed in order to establish, on behalf of the surviving dependants of the victims of an air disaster, which insurance companies the victims were insured with, or, in a criminal investigation or prosecution, to establish which insurance company certain suspects or their assets are insured with.

This need can be met with the CIS Referencing Tool (CRT), which is currently under development. We plan to make the CRT available to members in mid-2016. The Association of Insurers and CIS will be running the CRT under a collaborative arrangement. The CRT is owned by CIS, which is also providing the technology, while the Association of Insurers will be looking after the use of the application.

Membership of CIS is restricted to insurance companies and authorised agents (of participating insurance companies) operating in the Netherlands who are in possession of a permit from the Dutch Central Bank (DNB). If you are an insurance company operating in the Netherlands but headquartered in a Member State of the European Union or elsewhere and wish to join CIS, please contact us to discuss the options.

A membership fee is payable based on the insurance company’s market share. Special rates apply to insurance companies offering only one product. No charge is made for authorised agents.